Nevill Vintcent OBE DFC (1902 – 29 January 1942) was a South African aviator and airline founder. He was the son of

Charles Vintcent Charles Henry Vintcent (2 September 1866 – 28 September 1943) was a South African cricketer who played in three Test matches from 1889 to 1892. Born in Mossel Bay and educated in Cape Town and then Charterhouse School, England, Charlie Vint ...

, a South African cricketer.

Early life

Nevill Vintcent, a South African, born in 1902, entered Osborne in 1916, proceeded to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and served in HMS ''Temeraire'' for a few months during the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In 1920 he went to the

Royal Air Force College Cranwell The Royal Air Force College (RAFC) is the Royal Air Force military academy which provides initial training to all RAF personnel who are preparing to become commissioned officers. The College also provides initial training to aircrew cadets and ...

with the first course, was commissioned in the RAF in 1922, and served in

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languag ...

, Transjordania,

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

, and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

, where he won the DFC in unusual circumstances when he, with a brother officer, had made a forced landing in hostile country. To enable his co-pilot to fire the guns of the aeroplane and beat off the attacks of Arab horsemen, he carried the tail of the aeroplane on his shoulder, and throughout a prolonged engagement swung the aircraft into position for firing until help arrived.

Pilot

For a time he served as a pilot at the RAF

Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment The Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) was a research facility for British military aviation from 1918 to 1992. Established at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, the unit moved in 1939 to Boscombe Down, Wiltshire, where its work ...

(A&AEE) at

Martlesham Heath Martlesham Heath village is situated 6 miles (10 km) east of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield. A "new village" was established there in the mid-1970s and t ...

. Convinced of the great future of civil aviation, he left the RAF in 1926 and engaged in air survey work in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, the

Federated Malay States )Under God's Protection , capital = Kuala Lumpur1 , religion = Islam , legislature = Federal Legislative Council , type_house1 = State level , common_languages = , title_leader = Monarch , leader1 ...

and

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and e ...

, and he flew the first

air mail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

from Borneo to the

Straits Settlements The Straits Settlements were a group of British territories located in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Singapore for more than a century, it was originally established in 1826 as part of the territories controlled by the British East India Com ...

India

In 1928 he, with a partner, undertook one of the early long-distance pioneer flights, when they flew two

de Havilland The de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited () was a British aviation manufacturer established in late 1920 by Geoffrey de Havilland at Stag Lane Aerodrome Edgware on the outskirts of north London. Operations were later moved to Hatfield in H ...

DH.9 aeroplanes from England to India. For two years he was engaged with spreading the gospel of aviation in India, and his contact with Mr. J.R.D. Tata, of Tata Sons Ltd, gave birth to

Tata Airlines Air India is the flag carrier airline of India, headquartered at New Delhi. It is owned by Talace Private Limited, a Special-Purpose Vehicle (SPV) of Tata Sons, after Air India Limited's former owner, the Government of India, completed the sa ...

. Nevill Vintcent and J.R.D. Tata together pioneered the air mail service from London to the sub-continent. On 8 October 1932, an

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...

aircraft flew from London to

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former c ...

. J R D Tata, in a

de Havilland Puss Moth The de Havilland DH.80A Puss Moth is a British three-seater high-wing monoplane aeroplane designed and built by the de Havilland Aircraft Company between 1929 and 1933. It flew at a speed approaching 124 mph (200 km/h), making it o ...

took the mail on to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

, where Nevill Vintcent then took over for the leg to

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

, arriving on 16 October. The first westbound flight left

the following day. On 25 February 1935 Vintcent made an inaugural flight from Bombay to

Nagpur Nagpur (pronunciation: aːɡpuːɾ is the third largest city and the winter capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the 13th largest city in India by population and according to an Oxford's Economics report, Nagpur is projected to ...

Jamshedpur Jamshedpur (, ) or Tatanagar is the largest and most populous city in Jharkhand and the first planned industrial city in India. It is a Notified Area Council and Municipal corporation, Municipal Corporation and also the headquarter of the East ...

and on to

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, commer ...

with a

de Havilland Fox Moth The DH.83 Fox Moth was a successful small biplane passenger aircraft from the 1930s powered by a single de Havilland Gipsy Major I inline inverted engine, manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. The aircraft was designed late in 1 ...

. They built one of the two air transport companies which, before the 1939-45 war, built the foundation of air transport in India, and during the war rendered invaluable assistance to the RAF in operating scheduled air transport services and in such operations as the carriage of troops to Iraq, the evacuation of women and children from Habbaniyah, and later from

Own flight

For his work in the organization of air transport in India he was made an

O.B.E. The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1938. The approach of war in Europe impressed upon Vintcent and others the strategic need for an aircraft factory in India, and thereafter to that end his mind and activities were more and more concentrated. In 1940, simultaneously with the Government of India's decision to establish the Hindustan aircraft factory at

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

with American assistance, Vintcent visited the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and obtained the promise of a contract for the construction of training aircraft in India as an initial programme for the Tata aircraft factory. Shipping and other difficulties, however, delayed the building, equipping, and manning of an aircraft factory in India. But in 1941 Vintcent flew to England at the request of

Lord Beaverbrook William Maxwell Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook (25 May 1879 – 9 June 1964), generally known as Lord Beaverbrook, was a Canadian-British newspaper publisher and backstage politician who was an influential figure in British media and politics o ...

, then

Minister of Aircraft Production The Minister of Aircraft Production was, from 1940 to 1945, the British government minister at the Ministry of Aircraft Production, one of the specialised supply ministries set up by the British Government during World War II. It was responsible ...

and obtained a contract for the construction of troop-carrying gliders, and set about the organization of the company and the building of the factory at

Poona Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. Vintcent, anxious to lose no time, set out on his return to India on 29 January 1942. With the irony of fate, of all the numerous personnel who were sent to India by air and sea to establish this enterprise, he alone was lost on the way out. The outbreak of war with Japan revealed how invaluable an established aircraft industry in India, even on a small scale, would then have been; but it was too late for India to make any contribution in the production of aircraft. The Tata aircraft factories as well as the Hindustan aircraft factory were switched over to the repair and overhaul of aircraft for the air forces. In 1942, Vintcent set out on a flight to

to put into effect a plan for which he had fought long and tenaciously - the establishment of an aircraft factory in

. The RAF Hudson in which he had been given a place in the crew to expedite his return disappeared without trace after taking off from a Cornish aerodrome. While officially there was no further information, it is known that other RAF aircraft were attacked by enemy aircraft in the mouth of the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" ( Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), ( Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Ka ...

that day, and among his friends it was presumed that Vintcent was shot down in that vicinity.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vintcent, Nevill 1902 births 1942 deaths Royal Air Force officers Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United Kingdom) Officers of the Order of the British Empire White South African people South African people of English descent Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1942 Aviators killed in aviation accidents or incidents British civilians killed in World War II Missing in action of World War II